My top 8 suggestions are the following:
- Sleep 8 hours a day, consistently.
- Save money: after you have set up a good emergency fund in cash, invest everything else in one or more low-commission, index-tracking, ETF funds, as soon as possible. The Vanguard 500 ETF is a good starting point. This must be a priority. Because compound interest takes time to produce its amazing results, the younger you start, the better. (I also recommend to Google: compound interest + dollar cost averaging).
- Stop eating outside: learn to cook your own meals and eat at home most of the times. Cooking at home will naturally push you to learn new recipes from different countries: many of these new recipes that I learnt turned out to be new “classics” at home. Delicious!
- Reduce Social Media: remove the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest apps from your iPhone so that you can only access them via your desktop computer (you will automatically reduce your wasted time by at least 90%).
- Stop shopping to impress or please other people. It doesn’t work.
- Stop being a cheapskate: show the fewpeople that matter to you how much you care about them. Bring flowers to your girl/wife/ mum/ grandma. Make a nice wedding gift to your best friend. Offer discreetly to pay a dinner out if your friend cannot afford. Be a gentleman for all people you interact with. Write a thank you card to a colleague who was helpful in a difficult situation. Be grateful, very grateful, for these good people that touch your life kindly. Do not be afraid to spend money for those who are important for you and deserve your attention, kindness and generosity.
- Learn how to take (calculated) risks: with time we all get lazy and tend to accept the current status quo: our job, our boss, our colleagues, our commuting, etc. This translates into fantastic opportunities being lost because we are too scared to abandon what we consider our current safe harbour (which most of the times is not much more than a habit). Learn to try new things. Acquire the mindset to re-evalute your past decisions. Try new way to do the same old thing. You will be surprised by the discoveries you will make.
- Stop taking new debt. Ditch your credit cards. Pay all the new stuff you want to buy upfront. No exceptions. If you cannot afford something upfront, simply do not buy it (most likely you will not need it anyway).